


Defiant Refrain

by norcumi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/F, GFY, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reincarnation, Suicide, rescued from the tumblr purge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 17:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi/pseuds/norcumi
Summary: Fanfic of Jahaliel‘s gorgeous, painful “What-if?” of Pop’s amazing, feels-riffic Padawan Rex story.Two young rebels fight for freedom, vengeance, and each other.





	Defiant Refrain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faeymouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faeymouse/gifts), [Jahaliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jahaliel/gifts).

> Originally posted to Tumblr on 2/25/2017 and 3/12/2017.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Pop started this fab AU called Padawan Rex. It’s great. It will punch you right in the feels, and then come out of left field for an encore.
> 
> So. Fucking. Worth it.
> 
> HOWEVER. She might have made some speculative comments in the notes. Jahaliel might have run with that, and done some [speculative fan poetry ](https://jahaliel.tumblr.com/post/157478984865/order-66)that is beautiful, haunting, and makes me cry (It’s FAB).
> 
> Then Pop had this post, a reincarnation AU speculation THING.
> 
> Guess who started stress ficcing a new thing: this is fanfic of Jahaliel‘s gorgeous, painful “What-if?” of Pop’s Padawan Rex story. SO! Spoilers for Padawan Rex ahead, but I had to do a thing. I have not written reincarnation fic before, so this is gonna be an adventure for all of us. Also, because it’s reincarnation, I was in a mood and so gender and racebent both Obi-Wan and Rex because I can. Thanks to dogmatix and theotherguysride for plotting assistance and general awesomeness.

Her ma always said she was a troublemaker. “Never met a rule she wouldn’t spit in the face of, never met an order she wouldn't balk at out of sheer damn spite.” Alor hasn’t cared about that since Ma stopped trying to swat obedience into her. It’s also been years since Ma and the rest of the family died anyways, victims of the Empire because Rebels had been hiding in the neighborhood. The damn imps had wanted blood, and when the Rebels didn’t kindly turn themselves over, bastards had gone from house to house, sending grenades in to flush out any being who survived the initial explosion.

Alor had come back from avoiding chores to find half the neighborhood leveled, and the Rebels mid-firefight with several squads of Imps. She’d had a whole half-minute to take it all in, the memory imprinting itself hard and bitter in her brain. The burning remnants of her home, the barely recognizable body of one of her brothers not too far from it, and that _stench;_ city life and incendiaries and burning bodies, all underwrit by Pantora’s vast marshes. 

Then one of the Rebels tackles her, shouting for her to get _down_. She rolls away from the angry Rodian, snarling right back. Like _fuck_ she’s going to cower and _hide_. Alor snatches up a blaster from one of the dead Imps, checks it with a glance before flipping off the safety and then tearing into the backs of the fucking stormtroopers.

Alor is only a few weeks past ten years old when she leaves Pantora. She flees her homeplanet with the remaining rebels, the old style DC-15S strapped across her back. She bluffs like a pro, making a place for herself and going from “dangerous mascot” to “promising future leader” within a year.

Alor keeps the old DC, though she finds she’s better with blaster pistols and arms herself with as many of them as she can discreetly carry. Her nightmares of the ruins of her home mingle with a sense of purpose, as if leaving home after a decade of life, to fight and probably die for a cause is _right_.

Yeah, right.

She blows that feeling off too, and pushes herself to become the best damn soldier and operative the Alliance could have. Since she’d rather be killed immediately than tortured, she even ditches her old family tat design and adapts the Alliance starbird for her facial marks. It feels good, though, embracing that.

She loved her family, for all that sometimes she felt so out of place, the youngest girl with 3 sibs. Yet somehow, it’s only when she’s in that guerrilla army setting that she starts feeling at home. 

Doesn’t mean she ever figures out how to say she’d never been near a blaster before that Force-fucking awful day, though. No one would believe that somehow, she just..._knew_ how to use it. Everyone knows Pantorans are crazy, and able to defend themselves. She doesn’t even bother trying to explain that her family was too damn _poor_ for a blaster.

She doesn’t question. She wants the Empire to bleed before she helps kill it.

* * *

Ryloth is a slave planet. There’s never any bones about that. Not everyone is a slave, but everyone is involved with the planetary slave trade somehow. Cenai is never quite comfortable with it, always wanting to protest that it’s _wrong_, but she was born free and she can too easily imagine the slave collar that dissent could earn her.

She knows to keep her mouth shut, her eyes down, and her lekku still. It’s a relief to be overlooked sometimes, to be honest. She is Lethan stock, and the red skin tone stands out. She’s not the prettiest Twi’lek around, but she draws eyes no matter what she does.

She always seems to find the right words, though. The right way to flatter or deflect, the right way to keep out of trouble.

It finds her anyways.

She’s almost sold into slavery when she’s eight. In spite of her mothers’ business contacts, or their reputation, one day on her way home from school a group of ruffians tries to accost her.

She’s saved by a squad of imps. Their gruff-voiced leader takes her home, and the scare leaves her quiet and shivering. So close to the horror that creeps along the entire planet, so close to falling prey to something larger and meaner than she could ever be. 

That scare is somehow nothing to the bone deep, inexplicable terror that grips her when the trooper removes his helmet to explain the situation to her moms. Cenai puts it down to the ugly scar he has framing his left eye, and the deep wrinkles of a man who has too many sour glares without counterbalancing smiles. Without meaning to, Cenai cowers back behind Mama, wondering why this old human disturbs her so.

The trooper notices, but doesn’t react. Mother hisses at Cenai though, her lekku moving in disappointed disapproval. 

“Behave!” Mother whispers in a fierce aside in Twi’lekki. “That man helped you, and he’s a hero of the war!”

“Was, ma’am,” the soldier corrects in Basic. “Not ‘is.’ There aren’t any heroes anymore.” At the looks he gets from both Mother and Mama, the soldier’s lips narrow. “Emperor wouldn’t approve.”

That shuts down any protests before they can begin. Cenai doesn’t know _why_ the Emperor might think heroes aren’t useful, or good, but she does know that you do not question the galaxy’s ruler. 

She doesn’t ever see the man again.

It takes Cenai a year before she realizes that her near kidnapping was no accident. She’s not quite sure what her mothers do for a living – suspect in itself – but by the time she’s 10, she is an orphan. Oh, it could be worse, and she knows it. She has a somewhat inane uncle who once upon a time was important enough to inherit a job in the shipping industry, and he is a kind and tolerant guardian.

Daft, though. Too soft-hearted for his own good. Within months she’s found his “secret” accounting books, where evidence of shipping more than goods is laid out nice and neat for any being willing to believe he’s that. Fucking. _Daft_.

Cenai rolls her eyes and tinkers with a few datafields, hiding Uncle’s tracks the moment she realizes that what he’s covering isn’t graft or simple corruption, but slave smuggling – smuggling them right into freedom. She’s over a year into handling the family’s accounts before she realizes that it was a damned setup, and while he probably intended for it to just be a test to see if she was sympathetic, Cenai was good enough that he just left the job to her wholesale.

They have a strange relationship that settles into deep affection and a lot of shit talking. It works for them, but they keep it private. Particularly with Uncle as such a contrast, Cenai gets a reputation as a cold blooded, haughty bitch who is indifferent to everything.

She’s happy to take it. Let them all underestimate her. Just a girl. A child. Emotionless, indifferent, unimportant, not even a pretty face.

Good.

* * *

Alor always liked learning. Has a knack for picking up most anything she was willing to put effort into.

She puts a _lot_ of effort into becoming deadly with anything she can get her hands on. Blasters, knives, martial arts, anything in the armory of whatever base she’s working out of. Destruction comes easy to her. 

Friendship, however, does not. People keep trying to put her into teams, but it never sticks. Sure, she can play well with others. When it comes to a more permanent move, though, she just can’t seem to stick it out. Some of her higher ups ask what the problem is, why she can’t seem to settle.

All she knows to say is that she never seems to quite fit in. So she ends up a roaming agent, swinging through sectors and bases, setting up cells and then passing them off to the most promising being to lead them.

The newest two worst months of her life happen on a shithole of a dustball called Seelos. She takes one look at a former Commander Wolffe and nearly turns her starfighter right around and leaves. She doesn’t know why he or the other clone – Gregor, who’s nicer but way more cracked in the head – make her skin crawl, but something about them makes it difficult to sleep. It’s like something crackles under her skin, making her aim shit while sleep dances just out of her reach. It’s not the men are creepy – she knows that sort of shit way too well – but they make her nervous anyways.

Sad, too, though she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t ask them why sometimes she says something and grief roars up in their eyes. To be fair, they don’t get in her space either.

She learns some new fighting tricks from them, but all three are happy when Alor is on her way.

Clones leave her jittery, but the worst part is how the entire hyper jump away, she can’t seem to stop _crying_, and fucked if she can figure out why _that’_s happening. 

* * *

Cenai hates guns. Blasters are terrifying and make her feel sick, so she just works to avoid them. That lasts until one of Uncle’s plots comes home to roost, and he has this convoluted plan that requires her to pretend to be a sniper. He takes her to a rooftop far from home, shows her how everything is set up and all she has to do is leave this safety on, and squeeze the trigger thus when the crosshairs would end up on some asshole’s head _there_.

Matters go south. Instead of the intimidation working, they don’t even get to that point of negotiations before people start firing.

Cenai finds something exhilarating and freeing about the sniper rifle, and in the minute after she disengages the safety lock almost all of Uncle’s opponents are dead. One shot one kill, over and over again, until the charge runs empty. 

She loves not being afraid. She adores the fierce coldness that comes with crosshairs and distance and making enemies very, very dead.

Uncle insists she also learn how to protect herself from close quarter problems, once he realizes there’s going to be no stopping her love affair with the sniper rifle.

That doesn’t go nearly as well. Blasters...just don’t work. She can’t aim for shit, her hands shake that badly, and when Uncle tries to settle for “stun headshots” it’s somehow worse.

Vibroblades somehow end up better. With that, Uncle sits her down and demonstrates how his cane – a legitimate necessity – dismantles into an actual blade. He can’t use it for long, but it looks intimidating and that’s usually all he needs. Best of all, everyone is usually too focused on the hidden blade to even think that there might be a neat little hollow in the hilt too, just the right size to sneak data chips and other contraband.

A sword. Like he’s some kind of ridiculous nostalgic costumer who goes to the illicit clubs that pretend it’s still the days of the Republic.

For all that, she takes to it almost as well as she does to the sniper blaster. People get used to seeing Cenai and her uncle, walking along at a slow pace, their canes tapping along in quiet sync.

* * *

Alor isn’t sure what to think of Cenai when they first meet. She’s been sent to Ryloth to get important intel from some Imps that are going to be passing through, and she’s a bit over a week to prepare. She had the option of bringing in a team, but the really good folks she wanted are either already assigned, halfway across the galaxy, or dead. This might be an important mission, but the pool of talent she could pick from is limited.

She opts for local assistance instead, since it’s freakin’ Ryloth, and there’s bound to be bounty hunters and smugglers galore.

Two hires later, and she still needs a slicer and possibly another warm body for sneaking and cover. ‘Slicer’ gets her Oton’bale Jikso, an older gentleman with a cane and a warm, sly smile Alor doesn’t trust for a moment. Since he comes with an assistant/partner, no negotiation possible, she’s ok with that.

Alor meets said partner at Jikso’s little warehouse bolthole. She’s a red Twi’lek, long lekku wrapped in a tan headdress. She’s a slim teenager, with some muscle tone, and a cane of her own – though Alor would bet the entire Empire that Cenai doesn’t need it.

She also has the most gorgeous blue eyes Alor has ever seen, and she wonders how much time she wasted staring into them. Since no one razzes her between introductions and Alor starting the debrief, it probably wasn’t the eternity it felt like.

* * *

Alor is the first Pantoran Cenai meets in person. She’s harder than Cenai would expect, all muscle and gruff attitude. Younger than she’d expect a Rebellion operative to be, too, but there isn’t that much of an age difference between them.

Too young for what they do. Too old for how many years they’ve seen. She can’t really comment.

Alor is a pale blue, her hair light purple. The way it’s shaved on the sides, the longer center braided almost to the nape of the neck, fascinates Cenai almost as much as the deep gold eyes. Most striking though are the yellow facial tattoos she has, geometric shapes that frame her features. A cluster of three diamonds on the center of her forehead. Two streaks down her cheeks make her face look even leaner, while the arcs of upraised wings rise from the outer edge of her eyebrows. It’s not symmetrical enough to be the Rebel insignia, but all one has to do is squint and it blurs together to make the sign. Something inside her that Cenai doesn’t understand desperately wants to reach out and trace those swooping lines above the brows. It could leave Alor looking surprised, or fierce, but something about them leaves Cenai with a strange new sensation of recognition, and _want_. 

* * *

The op goes down almost to plan, which is weird for Alor. She’s used to things going pear shaped. Oh, it’s not 100% on all fronts – for that matter, for a little bit it looks like several of the Imps are going to get away and that would make for a hell of a clean up. Then three blaster bolts come in, long distance shots that have only a faint hint of a high-pitched scream that means it came from a sniper rifle. 

Cenai is a sniper and no one bothered to mention that. Not that Alor is complaining.

She’s not complaining the next day, either. She’s to turn the intel over to a different local operative who couldn’t be involved – technically so as not to blow their cover.

Turns out it’s because they’re a double agent, and they’ve finally decided to go full Imp. Cenai had offered to tag along as additional cover – they could pretend to be just two friends meeting up for lunch – but it means that when two full squads of stormtroopers swarm out of the woodwork, Alor has backup. They end up back to back, Alor with a vibroblade and a blaster, while Cenai yanks the bottom half of her cane off to reveal a nasty little sword inside. She uses the case as another weapon, clubbing as well as stabbing, and between the two fo them they manage to escape mostly whole. 

Fucking traitor dies, which is good. When they finally manage to go to ground, Alor is watching the building’s entrance, blaster still out and ready. It takes a faint whimper escaping Cenai for her to realize that things are still _odd_, and she looks over to find the competent Twi’lek is pressed back against the wall, blanched almost pink. Her eyes are huge and tragic, for all that she looks a little confused too. 

“Could you...please put that away? It’s – you–”

“I won’t shoot you,” Alor grumbles, miffed and trying to ignore the way her heart clenches at the notion. “I _do_ know what I’m doing.”

Cenai gives a short, jerky nod. “I trust you. I do. I just – please?”

Alor tries very, very hard not to show that she feels better with a holstered blaster, too. 

* * *

Cenai is relieved when they make it home (yes, it’s dumb, but she _trusts_ Alor in a way that doesn’t make sense and leaves this weird ache in her chest). They’re both lightly wounded, and Pantorans aren’t so common on Ryloth that Alor is going to have an easy time getting off planet.

Uncle gives her a _look_ when they come in, but helps them clean up with only a few tiny movements of fond disapproval with his lekku. 

He then does the thing which Uncle so excels at, which is stunning her by coming out of nowhere with the best possible notions.

He is quite happy to offer sanctuary to Alor. She can stay with them until matters cool down. “Honestly? Given what you claim happened, your Alliance might well want a new full time operative here.”

Alor snorts. “Me? I’m the kind of Rebel that blows things up, not the kind that plays middleman. I’m a _soldier_.”

Cenai keeps her opinions to herself, but she is certain that Alor is much, much more than just that.

Not only is she right, Alor makes for a very good agent. It doesn’t hurt that Cenai is right there with her, every step of the way.

* * *

Alor makes it to be guest room before the shakes hit. She’s not surprised; it’s always like this. Betrayal isn’t common, but they have to be prepared for it. It always seems to hit her harder than anyone else, souring her guts enough that puking is more likely than not, and the icy fury and hurt crawl up her spine and can give her such a headache. She doesn’t make it far as the bed, sinking down to a protective huddle on the floor instead. Time fuzzes a little, then there’s a tentative knock on the door.

It’s weird. Alor doesn’t relax around others the way she seems to automatically do around Cenai. She lets herself _react_ for once, lets the world stay fuzzy as Cenai yelps, then drags her to her own room, nudging her into the bed and under the covers. Things come back into focus awhile later: they’re cuddled up together under blankets, running warmer than Alor needs – Pantorans run hotter than a lot of species. Thankfully, they also do well in a wider range, so it’s not uncomfortable, just a bit sticky.

Cenai seems to have this fascination with Alor’s hair, gently petting it in smooth, gentle motions that keep the migraine at bay. Feels nice. After indulging in that a bit, she sighs, apologizes. Yawns right in the middle of it, because stupid fucking emotions hit her hard.

Cenai hushes her, waving off any potential embarrassment by yawning herself, and the two just share some helpless, only a tiny bit hysterical giggles.

Then they fall asleep like that, wrapped protectively around each other.

* * *

Uncle is insufferable the next morning. Cenai’s certain that he knows what actually happens, but when he pops his head into the room to announce breakfast, he also blandly asks if the sharing is a longer term thing. Might be useful to keep the guest room open, after all – as if he doesn’t have a dozen other boltholes to stash people in.

She chews him out, which of course he laughs off all the way down the hall, the giggling idiot. She tries to apologize to Alor, who’s an adorable shade of purple – she waves it off, of course. The Pantoran shakes her head and glares at the now closed door. “Ought to make loud obnoxious sex noises,” she grumbles under her breath, “just to show him.” Then she freezes, realizing it was loud enough for Cenai to hear.

It’s her turn to laugh it off, though she can’t stop blushing at the implications, nor the mental images.

They don’t actually go back to separate rooms.

* * *

Months pass, and Alor is shocked to find she _fits_ someplace. It feels good, settled, and so right that things just gradually slot into place without her realizing it. They make a good team, her and Cenai and Cenai’s wacky uncle. The neighbors start off giving her funny looks, but eventually they’re tossing the same cheerful insults at her that they’d give the other two.

It feels like home, and that’s a little terrifying when she stops and thinks about it. So she doesn’t, as much as possible.

Cenai helps with that, mostly just by being herself. She’s gentle, witty, has a hell of a sharp tongue. Playful, in private, while in public she’s a steady bulwark.

It should scare her, how they slip into a relationship with so much ease it’s like falling. It’s not a hundred precent easy, and they do have a few blow out arguments, but time to calm down leads to talking leads to making up. They don’t make the same mistakes, and it feels like this is something real.

Times like that are when it gets terrifying. So sometimes, Cenai makes sure she doesn’t stop and think about it.

* * *

One of the things Cenai loves so much about her... – about Alor is that she never stops, never gives up. She’s still not sure what to call them, beyond friends. Uncle prefers ‘girlfrieends,’ delighting in rolling the syllables around like his favorite pair of loaded dice. He’s never mean, just annoying in the way he has that is another expression of affection.

She and Alor are partners, certainly. Lovers, sometimes.

She is perhaps selfish in how much she likes those times. It can be humbling, in all honesty: Alor never stops thinking. She’s always planning; attacks, potential defenses, escape routes, and how to stop enemies, how many ways fatal and otherwise, potential repercussions – she never stops, even when it’d be for her own good.

So sometimes, when her mind is racing too far and too fast she asks Cenai for help. That’s when she ends up between powerful legs, nosing into curly purple strands (hair is so _strange_ and she knows she will never not be fascinated by it). She licks in deep, Alor shuddering at the occasional careful brush of sharp Twi’lek teeth. Cenai keeps her lekku twined around powerful thighs, hands busy over pale blue skin, until Alor is shaking and gripping the sheets tight enough to make her knuckles creak.

The way Alor looks at her afterwards is so _gentle_, those deep gold eyes mostly lidded and the ever working mind finally quiet behind them. Cenai holds that image close, treasures it, comes to it when Alor is between her own legs, or fingering her so slow and sweet it feels like she’ll shake apart forever, adoring every moment.

Only one of them should be terrified of being in love, so Cenai eagerly embraces it.

* * *

The Empire is nineteen years old when their settled lives crumple. It starts with dreams, vague images of suns exploding and consuming buildings and people who barely have time to scream. Neither know what to do with that, so they pretend everything is normal.

It hits Alor worse, something about the screams of the dying, the _helplessness _of those involved sinking deep into her bones and aggravating her migraines. It doesn’t help that something big is going down in the Rebellion, though none of the chatter they can make out provides anything beyond “Remember Jedha” – whatever that is.

The hints and echoes of screaming roar to life late one night not too long after. Alor can _see_ it, even knowing she is asleep, it plays out behind her eyes like a vivid holo. It is a planet with a moon where there should be none. Somehow, she knows it is Alderaan – a core planet she’s never been to.

Light blossoms on the edge of the moon, flaring outward in an artificial beam that pierces the planet – which explodes.

The screams of a planet and all that reside there cascade through her mind, beating away until all she can hear is the thunder of countless deaths howling ‘good soldiers follow orders.’

She bolts awake, screaming “I love you. Run!” and the sound of a single blaster shot ripping through her mind.

* * *

Cenai is screaming too, wordless pain as the echos of so much death shake through her. Thank the Force that Uncle is off for the week attending to shady business deals on the other side of the planet, because it means they can cling to each other and sob.

Alderaan is dead. She knows this down to her bones. She can _feel_ it, the same way she used to feel...other things. Ghosts of memories are drifting through her mind, and she hates it.

_Endless sorrow_. 

_Qui-Gon Jinn, I will be thirteen in four weeks. You are my last chance to be a Jedi Knight._

_I love you. Run._

Cenai remembers Kenobi. She remembers Rex. Though she does not have access to the Force as she once did, a literal lifetime ago, she remembers and can _see_, for a little bit at least, how it twined them together and tugs between them even now.

“I remember,” she murmurs into Alor’s hair. She remembers Order 66. She remembers Rex’s face before – oh, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to use a handblaster at all anymore, even in the worst emergencies. Not after _that_. 

She remembers confronting Anakin, his sulfur eyes burning with hate as his body more literally burned. She remembers the lightsaber wound he had given her in return, because everything within hurt too much to dodge. It had felt right, to be wounded on the outside as well as within. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi had died as he had lived, a Jedi fighting against the Sith.

* * *

Alor remembers too. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the math, not how she’s only a bit older than Cenai.

Must’ve only died a little before Cenai. She wants to rage at a dead man, to let some _clone_ she once upon a time was howl his wounded heartbreak at a target that doesn’t really deserve it, but fuck all that – the only person _really_ responsible is the fucking _emperor_, and they’re already working towards killing him.

When they finally manage to stop shaking, Alor pulls back and looks at her lover. It’s easier to separate out – she _was_ once Rex, Captain and Jedi Knight. She _is_ Alor: Rebel, orphan, fighter. Just because she once had been one thing doesn’t mean she has to be that, cannot be what she actually is.

It breaks her heart, though, to see that same knowledge in Cenai’s eyes.

* * *

“Alderaan is dead,” Cenai manages to say, and Alor nods.

“I don’t know _how_, but there’s no way the Rebellion is going to keep hiding – not after that.”

“Time to fight?”

“Time to fight.”

Uncle doesn’t go with them – much to their relief. He remains on Ryloth, making sure they get irregular care packages at whatever Rebel base they end up at. He makes sure that fighters and small ships keep moving in for support.

They remain together. Alor doesn’t give up her blasters, but she moves back to the cherished DC-15S.

She doesn’t like having the handblaster around much anymore, either.

Cenai keeps her sniper rifle, and her cane sword. They spar together, sometimes, following half-remembered katas for Soresu.

Both blades and guns keep them alive, and upon Endor they celebrate freedom – and being alive together.

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently had reference pics for Alor's hairstyle: [this photo](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e5/67/62/e567626a875a8d6d61baf4e527adf04f.jpg), as from [here](https://www.pinterest.com/explore/undercut-braid/).


End file.
